Clover fuses formal control, a solid grounding in poetic tradition (his allusions range from Shakespeare to Dickinson to John Cale), and sheer visionary exhilaration into a technical, moral, aesthetic, and imaginative lexicon that irradiates each page.The eerie cyberglow of Clover's lines illuminates a pageant of blurred and fragmented desolation: the Bomb, death camps, the Persian Gulf War, the beating of Rodney King, the whole numbing litany of modern horrors. Clover is a master of poetic shorthand, of the stark, unnerving image as immediate as yellow tape at a crime scene.Madonna anno domini is a sacrament for the twilight of the atomic age, a hellish Interzone with "God in abeyance" where dazed speakers search through the vertigo of negation for love and belief. And here. in this utterly convincing vision of a world whose center has long since lost its hold, we see the life on whose brink we, at the end of the millennium, find ourselves poised.

    The language, the invention, the imagination, and the sheer fun of his poems is astounding. It's not all dazzle either. The poems are also moving. This man reminds us that there is nothing more serious than a joke' - Charles Simic, final judge and author of "Jackstraws", "Walking the Black Cat", and "A Wedding in Hell".

    Perloff traces the poet's development through his early years at Harvard and his interest in French Dadaism and Surrealism to his later poems that fuse literary influence with elements from Abstract Expressionist painting, atonal music, and contemporary film. This edition contains a new Introduction addressing O'Hara's homosexuality, his attitudes toward racism, and changes in poetic climate cover the past few decades. "A groundbreaking study. [This book] is a genuine work of criticism. . . . Through Marjorie Perloff's book we see an O'Hara perhaps only his closer associates saw before: a poet fully aware of the traditions and techniques of his craft who, in a life tragically foreshortened, produced an adventurous if somewhat erratic body of American verse."—David Lenson, Chronicle of Higher Education"Perloff is a reliable, well-informed, discreet, sensitive . . . guide. . . . She is impressive in the way she deals with O'Hara's relationship to painters and paintings, and she does give first-rate readings of four major poems."—Jonathan Cott, New York Times Book Review

    As we read, each of our senses is engaged, and we come to detect a search for spiritual revelations--in buildings, churches, homes, trains, and cars. Then suddenly we find ourselves back in the open, pursuing the course to Baltimore and Bucharest, to the zoo and the park, to the past and future. As ever, Ashbery's wakeful digressions are wily, comic, heartbreaking, and vertiginous.

     After basic training these lads were sent directly into what was then called the battle for Stalingrad. What none of them knew then was that the average life expectancy of a new soldier in Stalingrad was 24-hours. Based on his words this story describes how this sailor-turned-soldier became one of Russia’s most revered sniper heroes. He became so infamous that Germany sent their own crack super-sniper to kill him. From Zaitsev’s sniper notebook we learn how he managed to stay alive and make some of his 242 confirmed kills. Zeitsev himself tells you exactly what his tricks and tactics of this deadly trade were that enabled him to be better than anyone else. Here’s this author’s description of what he said Stalingrad looked like when he first saw it as a greenhorn soldier: “The men were startled to see the city engulfed in flames. Zaitsev said it was like looking into the mouth of a spewing volcano while above this hellish cauldron layer after layer of German bombers including screaming Stuka dive bombers were feeding that fiery inferno. He could not even imagine that somewhere within that hell men were fighting a war… Vassili said that the city “looked like a smoldering and sulfurous hell, with burned-out buildings glowing like red coals, and fires consuming men and machines. Profiled against the glow of the fires were soldiers on the run. Were they theirs or ours? None of us could tell.” Better wear your asbestos gloves and flak jacket for this one because Vassili takes you right into the molten core of this blast furnace and tells you how he came out of it as the Soviet’s top ranking sniper hero of World War II

    It became the ultimate nightmare. Being the first winner of the X Factor in 2004, Steve Brookstein should have had it all. Instead, he tells a story of a man sold down the river by his own record label as they championed the runner-up, G4, and forced him into an album of cover songs. This is the story of what really happened, from vicious personal attacks by Sharon Osborne and Louis Walsh to threats from Max Clifford about going public. A decade on, and Max Clifford is inside and severely discredited. So is Andy Coulson, an editor who ran many of the untrue stories about Steve. He has been dubbed a pub singer, a fake, a flop and bitter as the narrative that begun on the show became adopted by journalists who thought he was fair game, frequently reviewing gigs that they hadn't been to or inventing quotes he hadn't said, and always regulated by a toothless Press Complaints Commission. Ten years on, Steve is now able to lift the lid on the show itself and analyse for the first time exactly what Max Clifford said when he rang to say, 'Talk to the press and we'll bury you.'

    Sarah’s experiences of rape, self harming, anorexia and bulimia draw the reader on a dramatic and moving journey which captures the attention from the moment you turn the first page. It is hard to imagine that anyone could emerge from such a process sane, never mind with the intelligence and bravery to share her story. Despite the frightening events of her youth, Sarah's spirit is powerful and a testament to the strength of human energy in the struggle against adversity. Sarah's story is a reminder to us all that challenges are placed in our paths to help us grow and evolve. Along the way, if we listen and pay attention, we are never far from angels and true love. Appreciating Angels will take you on a powerful journey demonstrating pain, loss, love, self discovery, intimacy, friendship and a deep appreciation for the people who cross our paths and touch our hearts. “The pain of unrequited love, as seen from both sides …” Despite the frightening events of her youth, Sarah’s spirit is powerful and a testament to the strength of human energy in the struggle against adversity. Sarah’s Story is a reminder to us all that challenges are placed in our paths to help us grow and evolve. Along the way, if we listen and pay attention, we are never far from guides and angels … and true love. Appreciating Angels, will take you on a powerful journey demonstrating pain, loss, love, self discovery, intimacy, friendship and a deep appreciation of the people who cross our paths and touch our hearts. “I’ve never read anything like this, thank heaven for its publication. With brutal honesty Sarah conveys the truth about her teenage and student life. Parts of which I’m sure many will relate to on one level or another. This is a lesson in forgiveness and letting go.” “Appreciating Angels has had a profound effect on me, drawing up emotions and memories. It has simultaneously brought a lump to my throat and filled my heart to overflowing.” “This book will reach many people – parents, daughters, sons, friends – listen and watch those around you who may be crying out for warmth, a hug and understanding – we can all learn to be Angels to one another as Sarah so beautifully shows us.” Authors Note 2014: It was always the intention that by sharing Sarah's Story, it would help others either by the subject content itself or by the royalties on every sale. All proceeds from this book will be gifted to B@ttitude - charity number 1140398 - an organisation that was set up through love to meet the needs of others and support them in a caring community helping people realise their dreams. For more information of the work of B@ttitude see their website: http://www.batitude.org/about-us

    This is their story--ultimately a love story--darkly funny, mournful, testy. It is about a reader who at times presides over the page like a god, and at others follows the leash of the author's voice through the dark streets of the book like a dog, and it is about a writer of determined slipperiness.  As we read, we think that each of us is The Reader, the one who knows the Real Story. But the more we think we understand, the more the story moves away from us—all is not what it seems. This eagerly awaited third volume by the poet whose work The New York Times described as "at once charmed and frightening" is a book of high-spirited subversiveness, a work of argument, seduction, and a relentless devotion to language. Then, Suddenly— bristles with the sound of the author's voice--insistent, vital, hilarious, and iconoclastic--tearing away at the confinement of the page and at the distance between the page and the reader. Emanuel's images are dazzling. She creates a performance that is fearsome and funny in its portrayal of the argument between the work of the text and the world of the body. The Gettsyburg Review has called her a writer of "exquisite craftsmanship" who can "strike from language . . . images chiseled clean as bas-relief." Then, Suddenly— is a book of spectacle and verve, part elegy, part vaudeville.

    The second book from Brandon Boyd which follows up the successful White Fluffy Clouds, From the Murks of the Sultry Abyss comes in a special outer box, a limited edition #d sheet of stickers of artwork from Boyd, and the book itself comes sealed.

    However there comes a time in every writer’s life when the need to have one’s work appreciated by others overcomes the reticence of their nature. With this book, I have reached the point where I can let you, the reader, enter. See me. Maybe some of the poems here will resonate with you, and that understanding, that secret “yes, I know what she means”, from a stranger, is what I seek.

    

    Find yourself in the middle of torrid love affairs, undying devotion, and scandalous betrayal as you uncover long-lost correspondences between lovers.From great Kings to War Heroes to Philosophers, spanning a period of five centuries, this collection illustrates that the human desires of sex and love were as powerful then as they are now.

    And yet there were parts of this biography that made him wince.” For The Golden Ham is candid biography. To it Mr. Bishop brought his painstaking interest in detail, his reporter’s curiosity, his layman’s interest in the world of the theater, and his detachment. And most important, he began and ended his job with Jackie Gleason’s guarantee that nothing Bishop wrote would be censored. The result is a kind of theatrical biography that is entirely new and, like Gleason himself, is made up of a great deal of a great many things. As Bishop says: “There are several Jackie Gleasons. I know some of them. There is Gleason the comedian. Millions know him, and he’s a great talent. Then there is Gleason the producer and Gleason the writer. Some people know these...Gleason the businessman-second-rate, but he thinks he’s good at it – and then there is Gleason the thinker (apt and fast) and Gleason the man (fat, out of shape, but light on his feet) and Gleason the tenement-house kid from Brooklyn (nervy and not a bit surprised that he’s on top) and Gleason the lover, Gleason the musician, Gleason the moody, and Gleason the lonely, tormented soul.” This is a book about Jackie Gleason. If you like him, it may make you like him more, or less, depending on the kind of person you are. If you never liked him, it may change your mind a little. If you never had any special attitude toward Jackie Gleason, you will have one by the time you have finished this book.Gleason, a 4-pack-a-day smoker, passed away at his home in Florida on June 24, 1987.

    Introduction by Richard Bach. Translated by Lewis Galantière and Stuart Gilbert.

    So great was his stature as an Urdu poet that he never had to mould his poetry to suit the demands of film songwriting; instead, producers and composers adapted their requirements to his poetry. His songs in films like Pyaasa, Naya Daur and Phir Subah Hogi have attained the status of classics. This exhaustive biography traces the poet’s rich life, from his troubled childhood and his equally troubled love relationships, to his rise as one of the pre-eminent personalities of the Progressive Writers Movement and his journey as lyricist through the golden era of Hindi film music, the 1950s and 1960s.